Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid

A consistently hilarious parody of the noir and detective genres, expertly blending classic archival footage with the action. As an inept private eye, Steve Martin tracks killers, playing opposite old film clips of James Cagney, Alan Ladd, Humphrey Bogart, Charles Laughton, and Ava Gardner, among others; scenes are lifted from, inter alia , WHITE HEAT, DOUBLE INDEMNITY, THE KILLERS, THE BIG SLEEP, DARK PASSAGE, IN A LONELY PLACE, SUSPICION and, most notably, THE BRIBE. Some of the cleverer jokes depend on the viewer's knowledge of 1940s movies, but there's enough slapstick to please even the cinematically illiterate. The basic film--what there is of it--is prettily shot in black-and-white by Michael Chapman (RAGING BULL); the continuity between the clips and the rest of the movie is remarkable. Martin is priceless as usual.

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